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When I was hitchhiking home from college 50 years ago, a talkative guy picked me up in a nice, presentable car as he was on his way to service his string of gumball machines. His advice: “There’s money in pennies.”

The story has it that Debbie Reynolds, expressing some adult supervision, told her daughter, Carrie Fisher, that she craved too much immediate gratification. “But immediate gratification takes too long!” Fisher replied.

I worry that a similar sentiment may have become the mindset of many who have experienced the quick 10 percent rise in market values since the election. Fueled by promises, some investors will feel that the next 10 percent boost will be taking too long.

Picture a late-night scene with heavy snow falling and 5 inches already on the ground, with not a car in sight at the single four-way intersection in “downtown” Springfield, Vermont. Dad was giving me, age 15, a ride home from a dinner party, and at the top of a very steep hill leading straight down to the center of town, he said, “Son, let me show you how you drive when it’s slippery out. You pump the brake like this.”

About this time every year, investors are yearning to know what the coming year will bring in the way of stock market performance. Wall Street responds to this craving with rosy, positive predictions for obvious reasons — they want to keep existing customers and encourage the flow of new money.

A new book, “No One Ever Told Us That — Money and Life” is another winner from John Spooner who, back in 2001, wrote the best-seller “Do You Want to Make Money or Would You Rather Fool Around?” His latest effort is aimed at young people entering the workforce who can use some insight as to how the world works.

For years, annual stockholder meetings were enlivened by so-called “gadflies” who seized the microphone and castigated the CEO and selected directors. Caught momentarily like deer in the headlights, these victims would put up with it for just so long and then summon the guards. Better yet, they held the meeting in some godforsaken, out-of-the way location that discouraged attendance.

Would society be better served if more businesses could be owned by their customers? A recent New York Times article prompted me to mull this over as I read an account of how some auto insurance companies, owned by their policyholders, pay out a significantly greater portion of their total premium revenue in claims to their customers.

Before the Affordable Care Act, the most common cause of personal bankruptcies was the lack of insurance for health-related expenses. When insurance companies could deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, anyone with health problems was uninsurable and facing bankruptcy in the event of an accident or a serious illness.

Hospitals just spread the costs of unpaid bills out over their insured patients, and we all ultimately paid the bill in the form of higher insurance costs. For everybody, it was “lose-lose.”

It’s safe to say that a vast number of American voters are disappointed with the way things turned out in the presidential election, but the news is not all bad. At times like this, I find solace in the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” One of the verses went, “In your life expect some trouble;
When you worry you make it double.” So let’s walk on the sunny side of the street.

The last line of “America the Beautiful” ends with the words, ”and crown thyself with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.” I thought about this as a good friend, originally from India, pointed out that the United States government is, hands down, the most successful organization the world has ever known.